The invention relates to a method of manufacturing a three-dimensional object. Especially, the invention relates to a method of laser sintering of members.
Increasingly, selective laser sintering is not only used for the manufacturing of prototypes or of small series of members, but also for the series production of fully operative members. As a rule, the manufactured members have to undergo quality tests, especially in order to test their mechanical properties. The mechanical properties of members, for example the coefficient of elasticity, however, are difficult to measure up to the present, because the necessary equipment is a complex one.
It is known to the applicant that test specimen, for example tensile bars, can be manufactured by the laser sintering method and can be mechanically measured afterwards in order to derive information about the properties, for example the coefficient of elasticity of a member to be produced, which properties may be dependent on the manufacturing conditions in the laser sintering process and from the material.
It is known from EP 1 486 317 A1 to co-manufacture at least one iterative improvement specimen, which can comprise, for example, Z-tensile arrays, density cubes, dimensional pyramids, flexural samples and combinations thereof, together with the member to be manufactured. Then, by means of destructive testing of the iterative improvement specimens, there are obtained data sets for an optimal manufacture of the production parts themselves using an iterative method. The above method is, however, quite complex.